Obradovich: Vander Plaats serious about Cruz, less so on Senate run

Oct. 23, 2013

Bob Vander Plaats

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If the Republican presidential caucuses were tomorrow in Iowa, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz would win easily. That’s the assessment of Bob Vander Plaats, head of the Christian-conservative group the Family Leader.

He said Cruz could bring the tea party and other Republican conservatives together if he ran in 2016. “If the caucuses were held tomorrow, he’d lap the field. I don’t care who’s in, he’d lap the field,” Vander Plaats said Wednesday.

That’s a strong statement coming from the guy who endorsed former Sen. Rick Santorum shortly before the 2012 caucuses and saw him surge to a narrow victory in the final vote count. Santorum, who along with Cruz appeared at the Family Leader’s summit in August, has said he’s keeping his options open for 2016.

Vander Plaats also endorsed Mike Huckabee in 2008, and the former Arkansas governor went on the win the caucuses that year. Huckabee told Politico last month he hasn’t ruled out a 2016 run, either.

Vander Plaats, now of Grimes, is a crusader against same-sex marriage, and he blasted New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for saying he would comply with a court ruling in his state allowing gay marriage.

Say what you want about Vander Plaats (and people usually do), he’s a shrewd judge of what sort of candidate will appeal to the most active Republican caucusgoers. If he says Cruz is the hands-down favorite right now, it’s unwise to dismiss it as just one guy’s opinion.

“I think what people like about Ted Cruz is he’s leading the way he campaigned. He’s very bold; he’s very articulate; he’s very intelligent,” Vander Plaats said.

Cruz was a leader of the strategy to push for defunding Obamacare as a condition of passing legislation to keep the government running and raise the debt ceiling. That effort failed, as Congress eventually passed a short-term budget and debt deal without significant concessions on the health care program.

Vander Plaats said, however, that Cruz has won the argument against his critics, among them fellow Republican senators like Arizona’s John McCain. “People start calling him wacko-bird and other names, that means they’ve lost the debate with him,” he said.

The Iowa Republican Party has announced a sellout crowd of 600 for Friday night’s Ronald Reagan dinner, which Cruz will headline. That’s a respectable, but not blockbuster-size crowd compared to past state party dinners. Crowd size, however, is as much a measure of political celebrity, or notoriety, as support.

Vander Plaats said he is still considering running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, “but not really seriously yet.” He said he would decide by Feb. 15 at the latest, but that’s just a month before the March 14 filing deadline for the primary.

That wouldn’t leave much time for Vander Plaats to campaign. “I’m OK with that,” he said with a laugh. “I feel like my network today is exponentially stronger than it was in 2010 when I took on Branstad,” he said, referring to the gubernatorial primary.

There are six candidates currently in the GOP Senate race and the first debate was Wednesday night. (That was after my deadline for this column, so see DesMoinesRegister.com for details.) The already large field has potential to grow even more.

Both Rod Roberts, former state legislator who is head of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, and David Fischer, co-chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said Wednesday they are still considering running but haven’t decided. Mark Jacobs, a retired energy company executive, is still operating an exploratory campaign. There are others who haven’t ruled it out but also haven’t taken any steps toward running.

Vander Plaats said he is concerned about the potential the nomination would be decided at convention, which would happen if no candidate receives 35 percent of the primary vote. Unifying the party in that situation, he said, would be difficult. “In a very tossup state like Iowa, you come out of the convention divided, it will be awfully hard to rally,” he said.

Vander Plaats has run for governor three times in Iowa, and he’s probably better known than the rest of the current GOP Senate field. He said he knows many of the candidates and considers them friends. “If I got into the race, it wouldn’t be because I’m against any one of those. It’s about that’s what I feel I need to do, is get in the race.”

At this stage, it doesn’t seem like running for Senate is even close to the top of Vander Plaats’ need-to-do list.